


All the stars in the sky

by forgotten_silence



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Heavy Angst, LIKE A LOT OF SAD STUFF OKAY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-24 22:53:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12022770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgotten_silence/pseuds/forgotten_silence
Summary: It occurs to Kaneki that he has a family now, that he is tied to these people no matter what the future brings (Spoilers till tgre 126).





	All the stars in the sky

##  **一**

“Have you ever thought about getting married?” Touka asks him one day.

“Not really,” he remembers replying, “maybe once or twice, back when– before Rize. Eventually, I thought I would. Finish University, get a job, get married.”

It is later that he realizes that there is more to her question than simple curiosity. He can’t say the exact moment he figures it out (is it when she tells him about the friend who would now never get married? Is it when he catches her looking at the ring on Akira’s finger? When he notices the way her eyes linger on window displays?), but it takes long enough.

He spends a few weeks wondering if it is something _he_  wants for himself. In the end, he decides he wouldn’t mind, really. Not if it makes her eyes light up the way it does when he finally asks her to marry him.

Their wedding is held within the crumbling walls of a stone building that must have once stood tall. For everyone that turn up, there are three people who don’t- who most probably never will. It is not how a wedding should be, Kaneki thinks. They mourn even while they celebrate, as his new wife picks apart her bouquet and uses the flowers to mark hideouts on the map, as Tsukiyama plays a doleful song in a distance and his brother-in-law tests the children on how to pass off for humans.

_Brother-in-law._

_Wife._

Amidst the chaos, it occurs to Kaneki that he has a family now, that he is tied to these people no matter what the future brings.

##  **二**

 

He tries to name the feeling that surges through him whenever she is around, the same feeling that makes him grin like an idiot without meaning to, that makes him feel lighter, more free.

“You look positively radiant these days, Kaneki,” Nishiki snickers when they meet, “Are you sure aren’t pregnant?”

But it is Hinami saying “Niichan, you look so happy now!” that makes him realize that the feeling he’d found so hard to pin down is just that- happiness.

##  **三**

 

If they’d been human, they’d have looked at apartments, sampled patches of paint on the wall of their new home, maybe even argued over the which colour the curtains should be. But they are on the run, and they don’t have the privilege to argue over such frivolities. Most nights, they sleep on hard, cement ground, curled around each other for warmth, for comfort. They never stay in one place long enough to call it home, even as the days get shorter, colder and less forgiving. 

Sometimes, Kaneki wants so badly to have a chance to fight with Touka over something as silly as the TV. 

 _One day_ , he promises himself,  _One day._

##  **四**

 

The first time it happens is a few weeks after the flowers start blooming, two months after Touka whispers the words in his ear like a secret for just the two of them to share. 

He’d never seen her cry, not in all the years he’d known, forgotten, and once again remembered. She is quiet throughout the examination,  her lips pressed together as Dr.Ogura gives them the news. But as soon as they are safey back at their hideout, she breaks down completely.

“I want my baby back.” She clutches at the front of is shirt and sobs, “Please, Kaneki,  _please_.” There is nothing he wants than to give her what she asks, but all he can do is hold her through her tears and the ones that are gathering in his own eyes, and watch helplessly as her heart breaks.

 _A human and a ghoul cannot have a child,_ he remembers being told a lifetime ago, back when a child had been the last thing on his mind.

After that, Touka is not quite the same. She talks less, she laughs less, and when she does smile, her eyes don’t sparkle the same way it used to.

The second time it happens, they don’t go to see the doctor. This time, Touka’s tears are silent. The weight of it drags at her more than it does him. He can see it in the droop of her shoulder, in the way she turns away from him and seems to curl in on herself. It takes weeks for her to start smiling, months before she starts to take interest in her surroundings, and just when it looks like she is finally coming back to her former self, she gets pregnant again. 

##  **五**

 

They wait for it to happen all over again. But a month passes. then another. And then two more. Her clothes become taut, her stomach more pronounced. When they gather at meeting points, people congratulate them despite their aversion to celebration. 

At night, Kaneki lies awake, waiting, worrying, readying himself for the loss that is inevitable, for his wife’s heart to be broken yet again.  

He wonders how many pieces a heart can shatter into before it becomes unmendable.

It doesn’t come. As the weeks pass, Touka’s stomach grows rounder. It is summer again when the baby starts to move. With that, the change in Touka’s demeanor is noticeable. When she looks at him, he sees  _hope_ in her eyes.

“We need to buy blankets,” she tells him, “and clothes. And diapers.” She grins at him and he  _knows_  he will get the money for whatever the child needs.

They pick out tiny, baby sized clothes, a blanket, diapers and many little things he had no idea a child would need ( “Touka-chan, are you  _sure_ we need three bottles of.. things?” “Yes.”)

Sometimes, he finds her up late at night, hands on her stomach, looking more peaceful and serene than he had seen her in a long time. “She’s kicking me, Kaneki,” she would say, taking his hand and placing it on her stomach, “feel it.”

##  **六**

 

He smells it before he sees her; the iron stench of blood. Then, Kaneki is flying up the stairs, two, three at a time, but his legs won’t carry him fast enough. He barely notices the door which hangs off the hinges, the glint of shattered glass on the floor, the broken table, the huge, gaping hole on the wall. The only thing he notices is the body lying next to the broken table.

( _Can we stay at a nice place this time?_ )

His hands are shaking when he turns her over, his hands pressing clumsily against the blood that is seeping through her clothes.  

“Touka-  _Touka!”_

Her eyes flutter slowly, almost lazily, and she opens them. Her mouth moves in a whisper that he almost doesn’t here, “save.. her.”

Then someone else sinks to the ground across from him, and arms are prying her away from him.

“We need to get the baby out  _now_ ,” someone tells him. 

“No. No,” Kaneki shakes his head.  _It’s too early,_  he tries to tell them,  _you need to save her first. Forget about the baby, you need to save her._

“We’ll save her, Kaneki,” Nishiki’s voice is gentle, “But you need to step back and let us work.”

The cry of the baby echoes through the building, and when it all quietens down and everyone prepares to leave before they are attacked again, Kaneki finds that he has been lied to.

They do not save her.

##  **七**

 

The thing they pull out of her stomach is red and blotchy, its eyes scrunched up and face contorted hideously as it shrieks. It rests in his arms, placed there by someone well-meaning, no doubt. He can’t remember if it had been Akira, or Hinami, or someone else. Not that it matters.

Nothing matters, not anymore.

“You have to be strong for her,”

He  _is_  strong. This, he knows. He is the one-eyed King, after all; the leader of Goat. But strength- physical strength doesn’t mean anything if you can’t even protect a single person.

“Haise?” Someone squeezes his shoulder. “Haise?” He finds Akira’s blue eyes staring into his, her hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t you give her to me?”

“Kaneki,” he corrects her. His voice comes out raspy and broken, as if he hadn’t spoken in a while.

“Kaneki,” Akira repeats. He let’s Akira take it, his hands dropping to his sides, suddenly weightless. He sinks down on the broken steps of the Aogiri hideout they are regrouping in. He doesn’t know why they brought her out to him; he hadn’t asked.

##  **八**

 

“We think she’s human,” Nishiki says one afternoon. They are sitting on a rooftop in the eighth ward- a lookout, drinking watered down coffee.

“So?”

“ _So?_ ” Nishiki echoes. 

Kaneki shrugs. He drains his coffee and throws the empty can. It echoes as it bounces against the cement. It sounds better than Nishiki’s voice.

“You have to man up, Kaneki,” Nishiki says. He pats Kaneki on the shoulder. “You have to start thinking about the future.”

“That worked so well last time, didn’t it?”

For a long time, Nishiki doesn’t reply. Then he offers,“She has Touka’s eyes.”  As if it would make a difference.

When Nishiki leaves, Kaneki stays behind, watching listlessly as stars start to make their presence in the night sky. From here, he can hear the sounds of people moving around in the floor below. The intermittent crying carries louder, continuing throughout the night as he knows it would. Someone would be up, cradling it, measuring out spoonfuls of formula and the correct amount of water, wrapping it up in blankets she’d chosen, singing lullabies she never would.

Kaneki presses a hand against his eyes, breathing deeply- once, twice, thrice, until the knot in his throat is gone, replaced by shaky calm once again. He wants to feel the rage, the burning purpose behind vengeance, but there is none of it left, no one left to blame except himself– he’d seen to that. Now, after revenge had been had and the price extracted, he just feels hollow and ashamed .

What would she say if she could see him now?

_She has her eyes._

_It doesn’t matter._

As if on cue, the crying starts again. Kaneki closes his eyes.

 

##  **九**

 

“She needs a name,” Hinami tells him one day, “We can’t keep calling her baby forever.”

She holds up the child as if to prove a point, and Kaneki catches a glimpse of blue in between lashes that blink at him sleepily.

For a moment, he forgets to breathe, and he stares, transfixed. It is fatter than he remembers, less red. The hair on it’s head is longer now, almost to the base of the neck.

“Would you like to hold her?” Hinami asks softly. 

“No!” his voice comes out louder than he intends, and much sharper. As if in answer, the child’s mouth begins to quiver, and even as Hinami hushes it with sweet nothings, it begins to cry.

Kaneki turns away, but the tightening in his chest refuses to let up.

 _I’m sorry_ , he thinks.

“Hikari,” he says.

“Hikari,” Hinami’s reply comes over the cries of the baby. “Hikari is a beautiful name.”

 

 

**零**

 

Hikari is almost two months old when he finally musters up the courage to hold her. Her eyes are closed when he picks her up from the cot, and her head tilts back a little too much before he gets his hand to support it. Then, he is staring into a pair of dark blue yes that look heart-breakingly familiar. 

“Hi, Hikari,” he whispers, “it’s me.” 

The baby starts, and for a moment, Kaneki is afraid she would start to cry. But she only lets out a huge burp. Then, as he watches in amazement, Hikari gives him a toothless smile.


End file.
